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Thursday, April 17, 2014

I am self taught when it comes to sewing. I learned the basics from my Nana when I was 7 or 8 when she taught me how to make an apron for my mom for Mother's day. After not sewing for almost 20 years I picked it up again and have tried a few different projects. I'm not perfect, but the more you sew the better you get right?

I am a huge fan of Heidi and Finn patterns, I've made them here, here, and here and I've had my eye on the Colorblock dress for a while now. I found Frances Suzanne's linky party by chance, and decided it was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. I bought the pattern and after making the Colorblock pattern for my nieces and spending sometime on Pinterest I decided I would "Flip this Pattern" for my oldest daughter. I saw this J Crew Dress and fell in love with it, with two girls who are growing faster than weeds the $70 price tag was out of my budget.

I took a look, got out my crayons (like any great sewer) and set to work. Here's what I came up with.

Here's how I did it!

Rather than using three colours or materials as suggested, I used white broad cloth and some chambray I had. You could easily up-cycle an old pair of jeans for this as well if you wanted to. Another change I made to the original pattern was that I did not continue the chambray stripe all the way to the back, I only did the stripes on the front section. To do this I just used the liner piece provided and cut 4 pieces for the back half of the dress instead of 2 as per the directions. The final change I made was I used a size 5 pattern but used the size 4 length. Probably a terrible thing to say as a mother, but I prefer my girls dresses to be short, I think they seem more playful that way.

Before cutting the chambray for the centre section, I got out my daughters crayons and figured out my measurements. The body length for the 4T was 11 inches long. After measuring it out I decided I wanted my stripes to be 1 inch wide giving me 2 x 1 inch stripes at the top, 7 inches of chambray in the body, and 4 x 1 inch stripes at the bottom. To accomplish this I needed to add 6/8 of an inch to each one inch stripe as the pattern uses a 3/8 seam allowance.

Once it was coloured it was time to cut. I cut the centre section out of the chambray, then cut 2 inches off the top and 4 inches off the bottom. I then trimmed the 2 inches down to 1 6/8 and the bottom 4 inches into 2 x 1 6/8 pieces. I then cut three pieces of white cloth 8 ish inches by 1 6/8. I sewed all my pieces together and ironed all the seams toward the chambray and top stitched. This will ensure you can't see seams through your white. Once all the pieces were together I folded it in half, put the middle pattern piece back on, and trimmed it down to size (You will just be trimming as you started with the section mainly in tact. From there I followed the Colorblock pattern exactly.

Belt

I wanted the belt to be 2 by 46 inches when I was all done. I like working with 1/4 seam allowance (I think I'm the only one) so I kept this in mind while cutting my pieces. Once all your pieces are cut, add the white and chambray to each end of your longest piece of chambray. Fold your belt in half, sew all the way around leaving a small hole to flip it right side out. Trim it up, flip it right side out, iron flat and then top stitch all the way around closing up your small hole. You could easy switch this around to make it longer or changer proportions but this is what I used:

2 white 5 by 4 1/2 inches

2 white 3 by 4 1/2 inches

2 chambray 3 by 4 1/2 inches

1 chambray 31 by 4 1/2 inches

It was super easy and super inexpensive!

Thanks so much toFrances Suzanne and Heidi and Finn for the chance to sew along! I had a great time and love my end result. Check out what others did here.